Making Time for Storytelling

Finding time to tell stories to our children is not always as easy as we would like. Between school, soccer, piano lessons, or whatever else your child is involved in—not to mention our own work and home responsibilities—it can seem like there is no time to spin yarns.

And when today’s kids (Generation Z?) are not engaged in organized activities, they are often sucked into electronic distractions: TV, DVDs, video games, favorite websites, iPods, and on and on. I’ve heard some exasperated adults refer to this as the “tyranny of choice.” Some parents say there are so many things competing for their child’s attention, that it is impossible to get them to sit down and read or listen to a story.

In my opinion, this is a cop-out. True, finding time for storytelling may be more difficult now than when our great grandparents were tots, but it is not nearly as hard as many people seem to think. After all, most young kids love to spend time with their parents. Here are three tips that have worked well for me:

1. Create a routine. If you are really committed to storytelling, the best way to ensure it gets the time it deserves is to make it part of your daily routine. When my youngest daughter was growing up, I would tell her a bedtime story every night as she was going to sleep. This quickly became part of our schedule and was a daily event that we both cherished and continued for years and years.

2. Get the most out of car time. When you are in the car with your kid, you have a potentially captive audience. Turn off the radio, the DVD player, and any other electronic gizmo and tell a story instead.

3. Plan your vacations to minimize electronic distractions. Where you go on vacation is up to you. Choose somewhere with no TV. Try camping, a dude ranch, a car trip, or someplace else that will allow your family to bond including plenty of time for storytelling.

And remember, when kids are young they crave attention. Once they realize that your stories put them at the center of the action, they’ll soon be begging for more. For additional tips on how to tell stories that your kids will clamor for, check out Family Storytelling Tips.